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OUR NATlOir^" I 



AND 



HER NEIGHBORS 






BY 



WASHINGTON GLADDEN 



COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Published by Quinius & Ridenour 

1898 



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®ur ITation anb fyv Hetgl^bors 



War with Spain is no longer a dreaded proba- 
bility, but a dreadful fact. Not even the formali- 
ties are wanting. As I write, the news comes 
that the House of Representatives has just passed 
the joint resolution declaring war, and that the 
deed was done in one minute and fortj-one sec- 
onds. Who held the stop-watch we are not told. 

In an emergency like this Chinese Gordon's 
philosophy helps a little. "It is a delightful 
thing to be a fatalist," he wrote; "not as that 
word is generally employed, but to accept that 
when things happen, and not before, God has 
for some wise reason ordained them to happen. 
We have nothing further to do when the scroll 
of events is unrolled than to accept them as being 
for the best. Before it is unrolled it is another 
matter." I am Calvinist enought to believe with 
Gordon that whatever happens is divinely per- 
mitted ; and that through this war, against which 
many of us strove, God will cause the wrath of 
man to praise Him. This is not saying that He 
prefers to be praised in this manner. If the 
wisdom and the justice of man would work out 
the same results, doubtless they would better 



2 Our Natimi and Rer Neighbors. 

please Him and more abundantly honor Him. 
And we may well believe that whatever good re- 
sults are to be gained as the issue of war might 
have been gained without war, if the people of 
our nation, and especially the Congress of the 
I nited States, had possessed a little more dig- 
nity and strength. Great have been the gains of 
just war, but it is Ulysses Grant who has testi- 
fied: "Though I have been trained as a soldier, 
and have participated in many battles, there 
never was a time when, in my opinion, some way 
could not have been found of preventing the 
drawing of the sword." If we, the stronger 
party in this quarrel, had had a little more pa- 
tience and steadiness of purpose, we might have 
compelled a peaceful settlement of this question, 
by which the horrors now existing in Cuba would 
have been abated and the island made free. It 
is true that the resources of our own diplomacy 
had been exhausted; but with ?uch reports as 
our consular agencies have furnished us, with 
such a confession of the failure of autonoomy as 
that of the De Lome letter, and with such a 
demonstration of the inability of the Spanish to 
rule as the destruction of the Maine presented, 
we could have gone before the great Powers and 
have com]ielled them to agree mth us that Spain 
had forfeited her right to rule in Cuba. I be- 
lieve that if the President had been allowed to 
follow his own judgment he would have worked 
out the problem for us without the loss of life and 
with far greater honor to the nation than can be 
won in a successful war with Spain. But the 



Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 3 

temper of Congress forbade further negotiation, 
and swept the administration onward to war. 

It may be said that delay was intolerable be- 
cause the Cubans were starving. But, in truth, 
the prospect of speedily relieving their suffering 
would have been better if war had been delayed. 
The work of relief has now come to a pause; 
how soon it can be resumed no man can tell. If 
considerations of humanity had been always 
paramount, we should not have been unwilling 
t^ wait a little, before drawing the swOrd, that 
the starving people might first be fed. 

It is not, however, profitable at this date to 
discuss this question of what might have been. 
It is not the Congress that might have been with 
v.hich Providence aud President McKinley had 
to deal, but the Congress that is. With this Con- 
gress no other result was possible. It was not, 
primarily, with the wisdom and justice of man 
that the problem had to be solved, but with the 
wrath of man. 

There is large room for indignation in this 
business; it plays and it ought to play an import- 
ant and decisive part ; but if it had been more per- 
fectlv under the control of reason the issues 
would have been more benign. And one must 
confess, with a heavy heart, that several of the 
performances which the world has witnessed in 
the Capitol at Washington, since this matter waa 
under consideration, are not reassuring to those 
who wish to see a rational and just solution of our 
difficult problems. More than once we have 
been forced to stop and ask ourselves whether 



4 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

the moral elevation of our national legislature 
were such as to qualify it for the task of adminis- 
tering doctrine, reproof and correction in righte- 
ousness to the other nations of the earth. 

That Congress, in this headlong zeal for war, 
reflected the sentiment of vast numbers of our 
people is not to be denied. And while this pas- 
sion is by no means unmixed with baser elements, 
yet the prevailing motive is a generous sympathy 
with a suffering people, and a righteous resent- 
ment against cruelty and oppression. The pas- 
sion might well have been better restrained, but 
it is not altogether unholy. At any rate it is the 
force that the Almighty is using to accomplish 
His purpose. Some may doubt whether any 
other force would have sufficed, but that must not 
be asserted. Doubtless if we had been a braver 
and a wiser people we might have done Spain 
more good and ourselves less harm. It must 
needs be that retributions come, and Providence 
must use such tools as men furnish Him; but if 
the hand that deals the blow is guided by brute 
passion more than by firm reason, neither the 
smitten nor the smiter gains the highest benefit. 

That the end of this struggle will witness the 
expulsion of Spain from the island of Cuba is 
not, I think, doubted by any of us. The strug- 
gle may be more or less fierce and prolonged, but 
this is the issue to which it will come. And this 
will be a just retribution. So far as Spain is 
concerned, the ethical judgment of mankind will 
testify that she has got her deserts. She has 
abundantly proved her unfitness to rule her 



Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 5 

colonies; her domination has been harsh, oppres- 
sive, ruinous; one by one her possessions on this 
side of the sea have revolted, but in all this ex- 
perience she has learned absolutely nothing; the 
same tyrannous, exacting, brutalizing policy has 
been maintained for four centuries. The fact 
that Cuba has been in a condition of chronic in- 
surrection for fifty years is itself sufficient to 
close the case against Spain. If, after three cen- 
turies and a half of her rule the Cubans were so 
turbulent and unreasonable that they would not 
live peaceably under her government, that is a 
demonstration of her fatal incapacity to govern 
them. That Spain has richly earned the punish- 
ment which she is now about to suffer cannot be 
gainsaid. It is the logic of history, it is the law 
of God, that great opportunities, misused or dis- 
used, are taken away from men and nations. 
Spain had a great opportunity of civilizing the 
Western Continent. The rights of discovery 
Avcre hers, the most and the best of the territory 
passed under her power. So weak and oppres- 
sive has been her rule that it has nearly all been 
torn from her; only to Cuba and Porto Rico of all 
her vast western possessions does she now set up 
any claim. 

This prolonged catastrophe of decaying do- 
minion is not an accident. Long years ago Spain 
put out her own eyes and has ever since been 
stumbling in the darkness which she created for 
herself. The Inquisition was a crime that could 
not go unavenged. It was an attempt to ex- 
terminate independent thought and rational 



6 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

leadership, and the history of Spanish decay and 
misrule shows how deplorably successful the at- 
tempt has been. This last long struggle with 
the existing insun-eetion in Cuba, in which Spain 
has proved herself powerless to restore order, im- 
potent for everything except the wholesale mur- 
der of hundreds of thousands of innocent women 
and children, is the final and complete exhibition 
of her incapacity to rule. The conduct of Spain 
in Cuba up to date is a crime against civilization, 
and it is about to be punished by her expulsion 
from the island. 

So much might be said by any unprejudiced 
onlooker; what is about to happen might seem to 
him the vindication of the righteous iiile of that 
Providence which rendereth to men and nations 
according: to tlicir works. But the people of the 
United States, who are to be executioners of this 
decree, have another interest than that of the 
unprejudiced onlooker. To us it has become a 
very serious question; our sympathies are stirred, 
our moral feelings are aroused, and the time for 
action has come. We claim that our right to in- 
tervene is indubitable. Spain has maintained a 
national nuisance near our front door for a good 
many years; wo have exhausted the resources of 
ueighborly remonstranc;:^ and now we propose to 
abate the nuisance. The constant sight of un- 
s^peakable cruelties has become intolerable; we 
will endure it no longer. Evidence has accumu-. 
lated that Spain has forfeited her right to Cuba; 
therefore, before the bar of the eternal justice 
we require her to leave the island. 



Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 7 

The incident of tlie Maine greatly complicated 
this question. The first effect of that terrible 
tragedy, in just minds, was to check the onset 
of intervention. It seemed at first incredible, 
even monstrous to assert that Spain had any 
agency in that ghastly business. It must have 
been an accident. Instead of permitting our- 
selves to be inflamed and ex<nted against Spain 
by the occmTence, we felt ourselves bound to 
guard our minds against oven the suspicion of 
foul play. Because we had a conti'oversy with 
Spain we woiild not permit ourselves to accuse 
her of such a crime until the evidence compelled 
us. It is a bitter thing to say that the evidence 
has been too strong for us. Scientific experts 
who have examined the testimony taken by the 
court of inouiry tell us that the ship must have 
been destroyed by. a mine: the mine must have 
been planted there by Spanish officials; the ship 
was moored over it by Spanish ofiicials ; none but 
Spanish ofiicials could have had access to the 
keyboard by which it was exploded. That the 
authorities at Madrid or the Captain General of 
Cuba gave orders for this destruction is not cred- 
ible: but the kind of rule which Spain has been 
maintaining in Cuba makes deeds like this pos- 
sible, and renders her powerless to ])revent or 
punish them. Spain could have found the mis- 
creants who perpetrated this wholesale assassina- 
tion before now if she had tried to find them; we 
have heard of no attem]it to detect or punish 
them. The attitude of the Spanish government 
in presence of this tragedy has completely sealed 



8 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

the lips of those who once indignantly refused to 
believe that Spain could have been even indirect- 
ly or remotely connected with it. The incident 
completes and crowns the proof that Spain is 
unfit to govern Cuba, and furnishes us with a 
cogent reason for telling her so in the face of all 
the world. 

It is not, however, primarily or chiefly to 
avenge the destruction of the Maine that we are 
going to war. Always, in such an hour of na- 
tional excitement, the motives are mixed; many 
voices are heard; the lower elements in the life 
of the nation strive with the higher. There are 
elements in the national life to which the cry 
"Remember the Maine!" will furnish a strong 
incentive, but there is something higher and 
stronger than vengeance to which the heart of 
the nation now responds. One hears in the hot 
debate now raging, in newspaper and forum, two 
notes that quarrel in the ear and cannot blend; 
the one is the voice of the old militancy ; the other 
is the voice of the new altruism. It makes you 
think of the commingling, in the moral crisia 
of Tanuhaeuser, of the Yenusberg music with the 
solemn chant of the Pilgrim's Chohis— the wild 
lawless strain winding itself round the great re- 
ligious melody and clinging to it, yet gradually 
loosening its hold and falling back into silence 
while the voice of faith grows strong and confi- 
dent and clear. Such, I trust, will be the issue 
of this confusion. The lower voices which talk 
of vengeance and hate and the healing of 
wounded honor fill the air with their hai"sh 



Our NaUon and Her Neighbors. 9 

clamor ; but above this noise we hear the firm and 
strong appeal to the nation's nobler self — the 
stern repudiation of the ancient code of the 
duelist ; the clear affirmation that the sword must 
not be drawn save in defense of suffering hu- 
manity. It is Massachusetts, God bless her! 
whose gray-haired senator has spoken to the heart 
of the nation : 

"I want to enter upon this war with the sanc- 
tion of international law, with the sympathy of 
all humane and liberty-loving people, with the 
approval of our own conscience, and with the 
certainty of the applauding judgment of history. 
I confess I do not like to think of the genius of 
America angry, snarling, shouting, screaming, 
clawing with her nails. I like rather to think 
of her in her honest and serene l>eauty, inspired 
by sentiments even toward her enemies not of 
hate but of love; perhaps a little pale about the 
eyes and a smile upon her lips, bnt as sure, de- 
termined, unerring, invincible as was the arch- 
angel Michael when he struck down and tram- 
pled upon the demon of darkness." 

This is the spirit in which, as I trust, we are 
going into this war. We are acting, not as the 
avenger of blood, but as the executor of right- 
eousness. The fact of the destruction of our bat- 
tleship is simply evidence which we hold up to 
the world to prove onr right to say that we will 
no longer have such a next-door neighbor. We 
have served on her the order of eviction. But it 
is less a matter of vengeance than a sense of re- 



10 Out Nation and Her Neighbors. 

sponsibiiity for the peace of the neighborhood, 
for the supp]'ession of misrule and cruelty. 

We might conceive the case of a judge called 
to pronounce sentence upon a brigand and des- 
perado who had been keeping a whole commun- 
ity in terror, but who had now been brought to 
justice. The fact that the judge's own home had 
lately been dynamited by this desperado would 
not be the only nor the chief reason why the 
judge should give him the full penalty of the law; 
if he were a just judge he woiild be careful not 
to let his sense of injury be the controlling motive 
of his action. Not resentment for the personal 
wrong, but regard for the public good would gov- 
ern his judgment. The people of the United 
States desire, I trust, to take this high ground 
in their controversy mth Spain. We are not 
fighting for conouest, nor for revenge, nor even, 
under the code of the duelist, for the reparation 
of wounded honor; we are fighting to redress 
wrongs which, though not suffered chiefly by 
ourselves, have become intolerable to us; we are 
fighting to put an end to savagery in our neigh- 
borhood. If any one shall say that this is a new 
kind of war, be it so ; perchance it is a holier and 
more justifiable kind of Avar than any hitherto 
undertaken. Let us hope that the day is not 
far off when even this kind of war will be no 
longer necessary; when strong combinations of 
great Christian powers can restrain such violence 
without resorting to bloodshed. But so long as 
there are Spaniards and Turks holding weaker 
peoples in thrall and inflicting on them nameless 



Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 11 

injuries, so long will there be a call for strong 
nations to appear for the deliverance of the op- 
pressed. There are malefactors, national as well 
as individual, who can only be restrained by 
force. When many strong nations are ready to 
unite for the exercise of this restraint upon the 
unruly, nothing more than a show of force will 
be necessary. United t-lien, the chivalric im- 
pulse which makes a man stand between a brutal 
bully and his helpless victim, ought to inspire 
stronger peoples to intervene for the protection 
of the weak and defenseless. 

When the Armenian butcheries were in pro- 
gress most of us felt that they ought to have been 
stopped; that if the Great Powers could not 
unitedly intervene, any one of them w^ould have 
been qualified in a peremptory demand that the 
savagery should cease. Some of us never quite 
forgave Lord Salisbury's government for not 
flinging diplomacy to the winds and taking the 
Turk by the throat. Multitudes of Englishmen, 
like William Watson, bitterly denounced the in- 
action of their own government. The excuse for 
that inaction was the danger of a general Europ- 
ean war. But no such vast calamity over- 
shadows the present crisis, and it is not easy to see 
hovv^ those who condemned England for not in- 
tervening to protect the Armenians could justify 
America for failing to put an end to slaughter 
and starvation in Cuba. We may recall the 
kindling words of Mrs. Browning in her poem, 
"A Court Lady." The time is the war of Italian 
liberation, and the poem represents the queen of 



12 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

Italy passing through a hospital, and pausing at 
the cots of the soldiers mth a blessing for the 
Lombard and the Tuscan and the Romagnole — 
Italians all; then — 

"On she passed to a Frenchman, his aiin carried 
oil" by a ball, — 
Kneeling, 'O, more than my brother, how shall 
I thank thee for all? 

" 'Each of these heroes around us has fought for 
his land and line. 
But thou hast fought for a stranger, in hate 
of a wrong not thine! 

" 'Happy are all free peoples, too strong to be 
dispossessed, 
But blessed are they among nations who dare 
to be strong for the rest!' " 

It is this beatitude which America may hope to 
win in the days now before us. So far as military 
prestige is concerned I do not see how we are to 
gain much by a war* with Spain. There is little 
glory to be won in overcoming a poor, bankrupt, 
distracted, fourth-rate power. 

The war may be prolonged, it may inflict upon 
us some terrible injuries, but so far as human 
foresight can avail there is no more question 
al>out the issue than there would be in a test be- 
tween a stalwart athlete and a crippled and half- 
paralyzed invalid. We shall all be glad when 
the cruelty and misrule of Spain are brought to 



Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 13 

an end in Cuba, but we shall have no great rea- 
son to be proud of our victory as a martial 
achievement. And the frantic zest for war with 
such an antagonist which hnds utterance on the 
streets and in the newspapers does not make one 
very proud of the American people. The reas- 
suring consideration is that this is not the real 
reason why we are going to war. 

The nation does not doubt that the issue of the 
war will be the evacuation of Cuba by the Span- 
ish power. We will trust that this end may be 
gained by the smallest possible expenditure of 
blood and treasure. But when it is gained, what 
then i This is the question which now confronts 
us. After taking so much responsibility for the 
welfare of Cuba are we to leave her to her fate? 
The President says that annexation is not to be 
thought of; in that judgment most Americans 
agree. But it is said that we must use our good 
offices to secure a stable, free and independent 
government in Cuba. Does anybody realize just 
how much this means? When the Spaniards are 
driven out of Cuba will there be any elements left 
out of which stable, free and independent gov- 
ernment can be constructed ? It is all very well 
to say, as our orators have l)een saying in Con- 
gress, that the people of Cuba are and of right 
ought to be free and independent. Independent 
of Spain they may be, by grace of our anus; and 
doubtless they ought to be free, but they ai-e not, 
and for the next hundred years they will not be 
unless some strong power steps in and rules them 
for their own a'ood, enforcing order and obedi- 



14 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

ence and slowly educating them to respect those 
muniments of law bj which alone freedom is es- 
tablished and defended. 

It ought to be understood at the outset that 
such an intervention as we have undertaken in- 
volves serious consequences and heavy responsi- 
bilities. Our task will not be performed when 
the Spaniards shall have been driven out of Cuba. 
Doubtless those senators were sincere when they 
framed the resolution affirming that our interven- 
tion in Cuban affairs would end when the Spanish 
power was broken; but they could not have fully 
comprehended the problem with which they were 
dealing. They would have been wiser if they 
had phrased their disclaimer somewhat different- 
ly. To say that we are not fighting for terri- 
torial aggrandizement is, I hope, entirely true; 
but to say that we do not propose to take any 
responsibility for the Cubans after they are sdt 
free from Spain is neither kind nor wise. They 
will need our protection, and we shall not be be 
able to withhold it. 

The expectation that the people of Cuba will 
be able to govern themselves as soon as the 
Spaniards are driven out, is one with which we 
must not delude ourselves. It is passing strange 
that our orators in Congress and our advocates 
'in the newspaper offices should know so little of 
the lessons of experience. Republics of Spanish 
American origin are not rare on this continent; 
would it not be worth while to find out what 
manner of things they are? The experiment 
which it is proposed to try in Cuba has been tried 



Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 15 

a great many times; if anybody can point to an 
instance in tropical countries in which it has been 
successful, that would be instructive and encour- 
aging. Quite a number of such countries upon 
this continent have been under republican forms 
of government for from fifty to seventy-five 
years; if any one knows of an instance in which 
free and stable government has been developed 
among them it might be well to speak up and tell 
us where it is. Somehow the geographers and 
the historians and the newspaper reporters do not 
seem to have discovered it. 

The April number of llie Forum contains an 
article by that experienced and capable observer 
and student, Mr. William Eleroy Curtis, respect- 
ing the republics, so-called, of Central America. 
Speaking generally of these states, Mr. Curtis 
says : 

''Public opinion in the Latin states is tolerant 
toward official peculation; perhaps this is due to 
habit. It is too often the case in Central Ameri- 
ca for a new president, when he first comes into 
]>ower, to invest in Xew York, London, 
or Paris as soon as possible a sum suf- 
ficient to keep himself and his family 
in luxury for the rest of their lives. When 
that is accomplished his next effort is to 
provide for his re-election by the ordinary means 
known to politicians in those countries, which in- 
volve liberal allowances and sinecures for his sup^ 
porters, the appointment of unnecessary officials, 
unwarranted liberality in granting contracts and 
concessions, and the maintenance of an army to 



16 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

preserve order and protect the palace. Though 
such efforts, when directed by a brave and skill- 
ful man, usually prove successful, rivals are apt 
to spring up, and factions and feuds are numer- 
ous. Whenever a revolution occurs it means 
that some president is endeavoring to perpetuate 
his authority against some one who desires to 
succeed him, or that some ambitious statesman 
is so eager for political promotion that he cannot 
wait for an election. If let alone the people 
never rebel. They are patient, patriotic, long 
suffering; and while their partizanship finds ex- 
pression in fiercer emotions than are oft«n 
displayed in the political contests of North 
America they will submit to almost any kind of 
misgovernment until their indignation is aroused 
by some unusual act. 

'^This peculiarity of the Central American re- 
publics keeps tliem poor. It prevents the de- 
velopment of their natural resources, the con- 
struction of internal improvements and the estab- 
lishment of mechanical industries. It frightens 
capital from making investments, and keeps im- 
migrants away. There is practically no immi- 
gration. Money raised by taxation or by the 
sale of bonds for educational purposes or public 
works is too often used to pay an army and to buy 
ammunition for the suppression of a revolution. 
In one country four loans have been made for 
one and the same purpose during the last twenty 
years, and every dollar has been diverted. The 
roads are neglected, schools and public institu- 
tions are unsupported, and citizens who are fortu- 



Our Nation arid Her Neighbors. 17 

nate enough to have a surplus invest it abroad be- 
cause they dare not engage in enterprises that 
may be interrupted by political disturbances." 

Such is the testimony of this competent wit- 
ness respecting the political conditions which 
generally prevail in Central American republics. 
He suggests no exceptions to this statement; if 
different conditions from these anywhere exist he 
does not mention them. 

Speaking particularly of Guatemala Mr. Curtis 
tells us that ''a form of peonage still exists in the 
Central American countries; and the law re- 
quires that a man who owes money must work out 
the debt if the creditor insists upon it. Even 
death does not release the debt, for the obligation 
rests upon his children until the money is paid. 
Thus the 'haciendados,' or planters, who are of 
Spanish origin, hold their laborers with as strong 
a grip as when slavery was lawful. But the 
peons are contented, and seldom make an effort 
to escape from bondage. Their masters live at 
the capital or in Paris or New York, occasionally 
visiting their farms, which are committed to the 
care of overseers. * * * There is but little in- 
dependent farming among the cominon people, 
although each family has a garden-plot on which 
the women raise vegetables for market. There 
are lying idle in Gautemala millions of acres of 
excellent soil that might be bought for a song. 
But it is not customary for the laboring classes 
to own their own homes. They are contented 
to remain as their father's and grandfather's 
were; contributing to the prosperity of the 



18 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

grandees, into whose pockets the profits of their 
labor go." 

One of the nominal presidents of Guatemala, 
the late Justo Rufiuo Barrios, made vigorous ef- 
forts to educate and reform the people, but he 
was a dictator rather than a constitutional ruler; 
''there was, so to speak, only one man in Guate- 
mala while he was president." That he "had 
high aspirations for the welfare of his people" is 
not to be denied; but it is also to be confessed 
^'that he failed to observe the conventional dis- 
tinction between public and private property, 
and accumulated a fortune of several millions 
during his presidency, which he invested in l^ew 
York and Paris for the benefit of his family." 
In 1886 he w^as shot from an ambush while lead- 
ing an army against Salvador. 

Of his nephew, Rema Barrios, who has since 
been styled president, this writer says: "He had 
marked ability, was educated in San Francisco 
and at a German university, married a young 
lady from 'New Orleans and was credited with a 
higher degree of integrity than most of his prede- 
cessors and with a genuine ambition to promote 
the development and prosperity of his country. 
Put all these advantages did not enable him to 
overcome the hereditary tendency, and he fell 
a victim to his love of power. An attempt to pro- 
long his administration beyond the constitutional 
period provoked a revolution which he suppressed 
with difficulty; and a servant of a merchant who 
had been executed mthout process of law found 
an opportunity for swift and fatal revenge." 



Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 19 

This assassination of Kema Barrios was only 
two months ago; how many presidents the coun- 
try has had since then I do not know. So runs 
the world in the "republic" of Guatemala. 

Salvador is the "republic" which adjoins 
Guatemala on the South. The soil is extremely 
fertile; the population is about 800,000, of whom 
20,000 are whites who own all the land, fill the 
professions and manage the politics, while the 
780,000 mixed blood Indians "follow their for- 
tunes with an unquestioning fidelity and with 
an enthusiasm that is worthy of a better cause." 
Free schools and compulsory education are there, 
on paper; three per cent, of the population at- 
tend school. "The rich," says Mr. Curtis, "live 
in luxury and spend their money freely. They 
are highly educated, accomplished in the polite 
arts and fond of foreign travel and social enjoy- 
ment. The peons live in a primitive manner. 
They are uneducated, and lack most of the com- 
forts of civilization, but they are devoted to their 
employers, and to the interests of the Catholic 
church." The words that follow ought to be 
carefully attended to, because they may be taken 
as a fair account of the political condition of most 
Spanish- American "republics": 

"There is probably more politics in Salvador 
than in any other country in the world ; and while 
it appears in the geographies as a republic it is 
really an absolute monarchy (?), ruled by a small 
group of politicians who maintain their power by 
military force, and are overthrown as often as the 
opposition can form and carry out a conspiracy. 



20 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

There has not been a 'constitutional' president in 
Salvador for many jears. The presidents have 
always been 'pronunciamentos' ; that is, they have 
come into power by self-proclamation, rather 
than through an election by the people, according 
to law. This is so common that the people ex- 
pect nothing else. I happened to land at La 
Libertad shortly after President Cleveland had 
been inaugurated, and was much surprised when 
the governor asked me whether he were a con- 
stitutional or a 'pronunciamento' president." 

After sketching ^he provisions of the written 
constitution of Salvador, which is pronounced ''a 
model document," Mr. Curtis says: "But these 
admirable provisions are purely theoretical; and 
thexe has not been a free election in Salvador 
during the present generation. The president is 
generally a soldier; and the commander-in-chiief 
of the army generally steps into that office when 
a vacancy occurs. There is a law forbidding the 
conscription of soldiers; but it has never deterred 
the government from raising as many troops as 
were required. A story is told of a recruiting 
officer who sent a detachment of recruits to head- 
quarters with a note which read : 'I forward, 
herewith, one hundred volunteers. Please re- 
turn immediatelv the ropes with which they are 
tied.'" 

This report, in a magazine of the current 
month, upon the existing conditions in Central 
America, should throw some light upon the so- 
cial and political problems which we are taking 
upon our hands. Another brief recital, from 



Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 21 

another and equally intelligent investigator, will 
confirm this impression. The editor of "The 
Congregationalist," published in Boston, has just 
returned from a visit to another Spanish Ameri- 
can ''republic" — that of Venezuela, and in his 
issue of March 31 he reports what he has seen 
and heard. Venezuela has been a republic in 
name for eightv-seven years. The revolt from 
the Spanish rule was led by men of commanding- 
ability, Miranda, Bolivar and others; some of our 
own countrymen gave their lives for the liberty 
of Venezuela. Venezuela has a constitution 
similar to ours, and a population of two and a 
half millions. Of its present condition and pros- 
pects the editor of "The CongTegationalist" gives 
the following sketch: 

"Mr. Andrade was inaugurated president of 
the latter country at Caracas, February 28. He 
was the choice of his predecessor General Crespo. 
Mr. Hernandez, the defeated candidate, at once 
began to gather his followers into a camp near 
Valencia. They are variously estimated at from 
a few hundreds to 5000 men. The merchants 
of Caracas, many of whom are foreigners, have 
made considerable contribu^ns to support the 
existing government. Crespo, now commander- 
in-chief of the army, is daily making conscripts of 
the workmen on the plantations and in the cities. 
These are mostlv taken off to headquarters "lay 
night, but occasionally are seen marching deject- 
edly through the streets under guard. Crespo 
amassed a large fortune during his four years' 
term as president, and with the army is guarding 



22 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

his estates while organizing a campaign to sup- 
press the incipient revolution. He furnishes sup- 
plies to the army, thus daily augmenting his pos- 
sessions. Hernandez owns a fine property in 
New York city, to which he may retreat in case 
jof failure. But should his prospects improve, a 
considerable portion of the conscripts may escape 
to his cauip. If he should captvire Caracas, the 
revolution would succeed. Once in power it 
would he for the interjest of business men to sup- 
port him. 

"But Venezuela is not today a nation. It is a , 
political party, maintained by force of arms for 
private gain. It is a business enterprise, i n 
which vast national wealth is crudely operated by 
costliest methods for immediate returns; for it is 
liable at anv time to be captured by an opposing 
party of equal greed. 

''A word for patriotism is in the Venezuelan 
dictionary, but it is practically obsolete. So far 
as it has meaning it stands for commercialism 
confined to a clique. The few are rich. The 
great majority are poor, and, so far as they par- 
ticipate in government, are swung alternately to 
the support of one or another party by vain prom- 
ises of better conditions for themselves. What- 
ever party wins the people lose. 

"Venezuela is like a farm or mine held by ten- 
ants on no certain title and for no definite period, 
to get all possible out of it by any means in the 
shortest time. It illustrates the depths to which 
a republic may fall when selfish aims dominate, 
when patriotism and faith live only in name. 



Our Nation and Her AeiyhLoif', 23 

The government of Venezuela is Tammany in its 
maturity. It is accepted as a matter of course. 
Neither its supporters nor its opposers feel any 
need of apologizing for it. Those who profit 
by it value it for what they think it is worth to 
themselves. Those who lose by it keep for it a 
hatred held in check by hopes of capturing it." 

Since this was printed, on Monday, April 17, 
a dispatch from Venezuela, by way of London, 
informs us that General Crespo was killed on 
Saturday, the 15th, in a fight with the forces of 
Hernandez. Whether this means the success of 
the insurgents or not we have not yet heard ; in- 
deed these South American revolutions are so 
frequent that they are hardly news; the telegraph 
editor probably throws many of the dispatches 
announcing them into the waste basket. 

A picturesque and realistic description of the 
conditions prevailing in these South American 
"republics" may be found in Mr. Richard Hard- 
ing Davis's ''Soldiers of Fortune." A more pro- 
saic and precise statement is this, from Mr. Ben- 
jamin Kidd's '^Social Evolution." Mr. Kidd is 
speaking of the vast territories embraced in Cen- 
tral America and in tropical South America: 

"In this expanse, which includes over three- 
fourths of the entire continental area south of 
the territory of the United States, we have one of 
the richest regions of the earth. Under the out- 
ward forms of European government it appears, 
however, to be slowly drifting out of our civiliza- 
tion. The habit has lately obtained among us of 
thinking of those countries as inhabited by 



24 Our Ifation and Her Neighbors. 

Europeans ouly, and as included in our western 
civilization— a habit doubtless due to the tend- 
ency to regard them as colonies of European 
powers which have become independent after the 
manner of the United States. As a matter of 
fact this view has little to justify it. In the 
twenty-two republics comprising the territory in 
question, considerably over three-fourths of the 
entire population are descendants of the original 
Indian inhabitants, or imported negroes or mixed 
races. The pure white population appears to be 
unable to maintain itself for more than a limited 
number of generations, without recruiting itself 
from the outside. It is a gradually diminish- 
ing element, tending to ally itself in an increasing 
degree with 'color.' * * * We must apparent- 
ly look forward to the time when these territories 
will be almost exclusively peopled by the Black 
and Indian races. 

"Meanwhile the resources of this large region 
remain almost undeveloped or run to waste. 
During the past fifty years the European powers 
may be said to have endeavored to develope them 
in a manner that apparently promised to be ad- 
vantageous to both parties, and not inconsistent 
with the spirit of the new altruistic ideas which 
have come to govern men's minds. Since the 
period of their independence immense sums have 
been borrowed by the republics of Central and 
South America, with the object of developing 
their resources, and large amounts have been in- 
vested by private persons in public enterprises 
undertaken by Europeans in these countries. 



Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 25 

But the general prevalence of those qualities 
which distinguish peoples of low social efficiency 
lias been like a blight on. the whole region. In 
nearly all the republics in question the history of 
government has been the same. Under the out- 
ward forms of written laws and constitutions of 
the most exemplary character, they have dis- 
played a general absence of that sense of public 
and private duty which has always distinguished 
peoples who have reached a high state of social 
development. Corruption in all branches of the 
government, insolvency, bankruptcy and politic- 
al revolutions succeeding each other at short in- 
tervals, have become the normal incidents of pub- 
lic life — the accompanying features being a 
permanent state of of uncertainty, lack of energy 
and enterprise among"st the people, and general 
commercial depression." 

Such is the verdict of history upon the at- 
tempts to establish republican institutions in the 
tropical Spanish-American populations. Mr, 
Kidd includes in his generalizations twenty-two 
'^republics" of Central and tropical South Ameri- 
ca; he makes no exception among them. The 
impression which his words convey, and the im- 
pression which we gain from the current reports- 
is that there is no tendency to improvement in 
these countries. Indeed it is easy to see that 
such political conditions hold in themselves no 
saving energies; corruption doess not cure itself. 

These remarks do not apply to Chili or the- 
Argentine Republic, both of which are to a con- 
siderable extent populated by Europeans. Even 



26 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

in these the conditions are not ideal, but they are 
less discouraging than in the countries nearer the 
equator. Mexico is sonietinies mentioned as a 
progressive state, and the improvement in that 
ancient seat of civilization is notable and cheer- 
ing; but Mexico is under the hand of a powerful 
^md wise dictator, who permits no constitutional 
impediment to obstruct his plans. To speak of 
the government of Diaz as republican is to forget 
the meaning of words. 

The question now arises whether we have any 
reason for believing that a different fate is in 
store for the republic of Cuba, after Spain has 
been expelled, than that which has overtaken 
other tropical Spanish republics. The condi- 
tions are, indeed, in some respects dissimilar from 
those which have prevailed in Central and South 
America. The population is of a different char- 
acter. In Central and South America the bulk 
of the population consists of the descendants of 
the aborigines, more or less mixed with Spanish 
.and other European blood. In Cuba little or 
nothing of the aboriginal element remains. The 
natives were practically exterminated by the 
slavery to which they were consigned by the 
Spaniards; negTO slaves were imported to take 
their places and since emancipation the laboring 
people are mainly negroes. About 50,000 
Chinese coolies must also be reckoned in this 
class. Census reports are not altogether trust- 
worthy; but according to the best information 
I can gather, the population at the outbreak of 
the present disturbances was about 1,600,000, of 



Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 27 

whom probably half a million were negroes. 
Something like a million of whites were, there^ 
fore, in Cuba; and these were partly Spaniards 
residing on the island for revenue only, either 
connected with the government or engaged in 
commercial enterprises, having few social rela- 
tions with the native Cubans — regarding them, 
indeed, with great contempt. Between the 
native Spaniards, "peninsulares," they are called, 
and the native Cubans or Creoles there has been 
no love lo lose for many a day. In 18Y2 about 
one-sixth of the whites were "peninsulars." 
Many of these have returned to Spain during the 
insurrection; a large number of the poorer Creoles 
and the blacks, probably not less than 200,000, 
have perislied by starvation and disease. Before 
the country shall be pacified the population will 
therefore have been greatly reduced. The 
native Spaniards who have not gone will not then 
stand on the order of their going; the country will 
be too hot to hold them. The Creoles and the 
negroes will constitute the population, and the 
whites will be, I siippose, in a considerable ma- 
jority. This, then, is the difference between the 
Cuban population and the population of most of 
the South American and Central American 
states — that the whi-tes are and are likely to be 
more numerous in Cuba than in the other coun- 
tries, and that the colored races which make up 
the remainder are not Indians or mixed bloods, 
hut negroes and Chinese coolies. 

So far as the negroes are concerned, it must 
be remembered that thev were mostlv slaves until 



28 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

twelve years ago ; and slaves, not of such masters 
as those of our Southern States, but of masters 
the great majority of whom were ignorant and 
superstitious and brutal. The slaves on many 
of our Southern plantations had received some 
instruction; they had lived under the forms of 
democratic government; many of them had ab- 
sorbed not a little moral and political education. 
This has not been the case with the slaves in 
(Juba; their unpreparedness for the responsibili- 
ties of citizenship must be far greater than waa 
that of our own freedmen. 

Of the white population of Cuba I do not wish 
to speak uncharitably. I have no doubt that 
there are honorable and patriotic men and wo- 
men amongst them. But the measure of their 
intelligence as a mass can be taken from the last 
census report which shows that, in a population 
of 1,600,000, there were 34,000 pupils in schools 
of all kinds, or two and one-tenth per cent, of the 
population. Compare also, this statement by the 
eminent geographer, Keith Johnston, that not 
one in ten of the children of free parents, in the 
days before the abolition of slavery, received 
lettered education of any kind. 

ISTor have I any desire to speak unkindly of the 
religious influences under which this whole pop- 
ulation, white and black, has been reared. It is, 
as we all know, a Roman Catholic country. But 
there are Catholics and Catholics. Our Ameri- 
can Catholics partake of the American spirit of 
intelligence and are spending a great deal of 
money for the education of their children and 



Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 29 

youth; the Spanish Catholics follow Spanish 
ideas, and the type of intellect and chai'acter 
which they are producing there is a very different 
thing from that which is produced, under 
Catholic influences, in the United States of 
America. 

As to the general character of the creole popu- 
lation, I will venture on no sweeping state- 
ments. It is evident that as a whole the people 
must be deplorably ignorant; that the religious 
craining which they have received has been far 
different from that which Roman Catholics re- 
ceive in England and Germany and America. 
The climatic influences are not such as t-o de- 
velope the robust virtues. That there are strong 
tendencies among the Cubans to effeminacy and 
sensuality is not denied. 

''Although," says one authority, "the 'ereoles' 
and the 'peninsulares' are of the same oi-ifin, the 
difference between them is most striking. They 
can be distinguished at a glance in the streets 
of Havana. The Creoles are feeble and indolent, 
even when they are children of parents born in 
Spain. The Cuban Spaniards on the other hand 
are a sturdy and energetic body of men. * * * 
They treat the Creoles with a scorn and contempt 
only exceeded by the hatred mixed with fear 
with which the latter regard the dominant popu- 
lation." 

These sketches do not raise any high hopes of 
a superior quality of citizenship among the 
Cubans. Add to all this the fact that they are 
utterly unpractised in the intellectual and politic- 



30 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

al habits of self-goveruing peoples. iNTeither 
they nor any of their ancestors have had anything 
to do with governing themselves. Is it supposed 
that snch a race is going to take up off-hand the 
business of popular government? 

One thing may be safely affirmed: No popu- 
lation resembling this ever did establish and 
maintain for any length of time free and stable 
democratic government. It has been tried a 
good many times, and has always failed. Until 
the thing has been done somewhere in the world 
we may modestly venture to question the wisdom 
of the people who are trying* to do it. 

I am not now^ gainsaying the fact that the 
Cuban leaders at the present time are devoted and 
patriotic men. But the strength of a republic is 
not in the leaders, but in the rank and file. The 
few can never lift up the many by the machinery 
of deuKxn'acy ; the many will drag down the few. 
If the mass is ignorant and brutal, the leadership 
will quickly pass from the hands of the wise and 
good to the hands of the unscrupulous and the 
vile. The Cuban leaders are no better men than 
Miranda or Bolivar of Venezuela, or Barrios of 
(lautemala; but how much has the leadership 
of these men availed to secure for their countries 
free and stable democratic government? 

To say, then, that we ]:)ro])ose to drive out the 
Spaniards and leave the Cubans to their fate is 
not to speak advisedly. The kind of government 
which would spring wv from the soil when the 
Spanish tyranny was swept away would not be 



Our Nation and Her Neiyhhors. 3L 

worth tlie sacrilice of life and treasure that it is 
likely to cost. 

, To put an end to Spanish tyranny and then 
stand by and see it replaced with Cuban anarchy 
would be a proceeding in which we could not 
justify ourselves in the eye of the nations. No; 
we have put our hand to the plough and there is 
no looking back. We haA^e taken on ourselve& 
the responsibility of suppressing misrule in Cuba ; 
now we must see that the island is well and be- 
nignly ruled. To cast out one devil is not 
enough ; we must see to it that seven others, worse- 
than the first, do not enter in. 

But how shall this be done? We have said 
that we will not annex Cuba ; and if we had not 
said it we could not incorporate this island into 
our national domain and undertake to govern it 
by our constitutional machinery. That involves- 
universal suffrage, and self-government, which is- 
precisely what these people are not fit for and will 
not be for many a year. It is evident that here 
is a problem of statesmanship. We have no- 
governmental machinery, no political apparatus 
for managing such a dependency as Cuba is likely 
to be. England can do it. Her colonial system 
easily disposes of such a task. France, our sister 
republic, seems to know how to do it. She has 
held and subdued and civilized Algeria and 
Tunis. The work was begun under the empire, 
but it has been carried forward under the repub- 
lic. If we are going into business of this sort it 
will be necessary for us to furnish ourselves with 
the tools and appliances by which it can be done.. 



32 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

We shall need some carefully considered laws, 
isome new forms of administration,; I rather think 
that we shall be obliged to have some constitu- 
tional amendments. All this involves a consid- 
erable extension and some reconstruction of our 
X)olitieal system. It involves the abandonment, 
in such populations, of universal suffrage, and the 
introduction of limited, tentative and progressive 
methods of enfranchisement. It involves the 
frank admission and enforcement of the truth 
that some men do not know as much and are not 
as good citizens as some other men; and that there 
are those who do not know enough and are not 
iiood enough to take part in governing their 
fellow-men. If we are going into business of 
this sort we have got to free our minds of a good 
deal of cant, and stop chasing rainbows; we have 
got to send the popular orator to the war and call 
the practical administrator to the front. And 
when we begin to use our common sense a little 
more freely in this business of political adminis- 
tration we shall see that it is too delicate and diffi- 
cult business to be entrusted to those who have no 
other qualification for it than that they have been 
bom males and have contrived to eat and drink 
and breathe for twenty-one years. Something 
more than this is necessary to qualify a man for 
taking part in a free government which means 
to endure; and possibly our experiments in the 
tentative enfranchisement of the people of Cuba 
may teach us some lessons that we may wisely 
apply upon this continent. I am not at all sure 
that Providence is not going to show us how to 



Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 33 

reform our home administration by giving us 
some such tasks as will be thrust into our hands 
in Cuba. 

It may be said that we cannot do such work as 
this. But why not? England can do it ; Erance 
can do it; little Holland can do it; why cannot 
we? All these countries have done a great deal 
of this kind of work. Say what we will about 
their greed of empire, this is a vastly better world 
today than it would have been if these great na- 
tions had not put forth their strength and dis- 
ciplined their wisdom in just such enterprises as 
these. Is there anything in our political system 
which disables us from undertaking any kind of 
good work that may fall to the lot of a Christian 
nation? If so, we had better reconstruct our po- 
litical system. If, in the next fifteen years we 
could do for Cuba what England has done for 
Egypt in the last fifteen years, it would be one 
of the greatest achievements of our history. Eif- 
teen years ago the government of Egypt was 
drifting swiftly to anarchy and ruin. Within 
thirteen years ite debt had increased from $15,- 
000,000 "to $445,000,000, almost thirty fold. 
"With a submissive population," says Mr. Kidd, 
"a corrupt bureaucracy, and a reckless, ambitious 
and voluptuous ruler, surrounded by adventurers 
of every kind, we had all the elements of national 
bankruptcy and ruin." England's interests, 
rather than her honor, seemed to demand inter- 
vention in this ease ; but the Liberal government 
fought against this idea. I have just been read- 
ing an essay by Mr. Gladstone, written in 1877, 



3i. Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

in wliicli he sturdily protested against the occupa- 
tion of Egypt. But England at length reluctant- 
ly took up the task of straightening out the crook- 
ed finances of Egypt, and found herself, just as 
we shall find ourselves, with a large contract on 
her hands. It was impossible for her to retreat, 
and she has done for that hapless country a great 
and inestimable service. The taxation which 
was almost confiscation, has been greatly reduced 
and equalized; the administration of justice has 
been greatly improved ; new methods of irrigation 
have added large areas of land for cultivation; 
the cotton croj? has increased fifty per cent. ; the 
foreign trade has been vastly augmented, and 
the credit of the country so strengthened that the 
bonds rose in nine years from 59 to 98. All this 
guardianship exercised over Egypt by England 
has certainly tended to make that country freer, 
more prosperous, and happier than it was before. 
And British influence in Egypt, as Mr. Alfred 
Milner has said, ''is not exercised to impose an 
uncongenial foreign system upon a reluctant peo- 
ple. It is a force making for the triumph of 
the simplest ideas of honesty, humanity and 
justice, to the value of which Egyptians are just 
as much alive as any one else." England has 
profited by all this; but she has gained not by 
despoiling, but by enriching Egypt. And 
"neither directly nor indirectly," says Mr. Mil- 
ner, "has Great Britain drawn from her pre- 
dominant iwsition any profit at the expense of 
other nations." Her "gain is also the gain of 
ci"\nlization." Is not this good work ? To break 



Oil'' Natirni and Her Ntiyhbors. S5 

in pieces the oppressor, to lift from a whole popu- 
lation the heavy hand of the spoiler, to lead in 
light and liberty, peace and plenty — is there any 
better work than this for the great nations of the 
earth ? 

Something like this is what we shall find our- 
selves pledged to do for Cuba, and if we have not 
the ideas and the laws and the governmental fa- 
cilities for doing such work as this, the sooner we 
get them the bett^er. 

A large amount of work of this kind is waiting 
to be done by somebody. Vast spaces of earthy 
that ought to be fruitful and bountiful of good 
for the whole race, are now cursed by misrule 
and anarchy; is it no-t the high calling of the great 
nations to reclaim these blighted lands, to set free 
these hapless peoples ? We shall be called to 
take part in this work.; and the first installment 
of pur task is set for us in Cuba. Not a little 
work of this kind is waiting for us on this con- 
tinent. We have assumed that we and nobody 
else are responsible for this entire hemisphere. 
T wonder if we comprehend the magnitude of 
the undertaking to which we have thus commit- 
ted ourselves. For my part I doubt the wisdom 
of this exclusive claim, because it seems to me that 
in these large undertakings for the liberation and 
development of sinking populations, the great na- 
tions of the earth should take counsel together. 
T look for the time^and the centripetal tenden- 
cies of commerce and the great fraterriities of 
labor are hastening it — when a mighty confedera- 
tion of nations shall join to establish peace and 



■36 Oiir Nation and Her Neighbors. 

order in all the earth. The United States of 
America will not wish to be outside of that con- 
federation. The counsels of isolation which 
were wise in the days of Washington are no 
longer applicable; we are living in a new day, in 
£L new world; and it is no longer the baseless 
fabric of a vision that the poet descried: 

'*'ror I dipt into the future, far as human eye 

could see. 
Saw the vision of the world and all the wonders 

that would be; 
iSaw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies 

of magic sails, 
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down 

with costly bales; 
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there 

rained a ghastly dew 
Trom the nations' airy navies gTappling in the 

central blue; 
Far along the w^orld wide whispers of the south 

wind rushing warm, 
With the standards of the peoples plunging 

through the thunderstorm, 
Till this war-drum throbbed no longer, arid 

the battle-flags were furled 
In the Parliament of man, the federation of 

the world; 
There the common sense of ^nost shall hold a 

fretful realm in pwe, 
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in uni- 
versal l-w." 



Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 37 

How this confederation is to be formed I am 
not quite sure, but the way is opening. It will 
begin with a compact of friendship between 
America and England; (I wonder how many of 
those senators who defeated that treaty would 
dare to vote against it today!) and when that is 
formed France can hardly hold aloof from it; 
and Switzerland, brave little Holland, Belgium 
and the Scandinavian countries will naturally 
gravitate toward it. As for the absolutist em- 
pires, let them stay outside, if they so decree; the 
power of such a confederation, like the magnetic 
mountain, will draw from the absolutist ships the 
very nails that hold them together, and internal' 
revolutions will sweep away the obstacles that 
hinder their fraternization with the other nations 
of the earth. The whole movement of humanity 
is developing this consciousness of unity; the 
governments that are most responsive to the 
thought of the people are most aware of it; it is 
not only those deep sea cables which join Eng- 
land with her colonies, but every other strand of 
steel that binds distant lands together of which 
Mr. Kipling's words are true : 

"Hush, men talk today o'er the waste of the ulti- 
mate slime. 
And a new word runs between, whispering, 'Let 
us be one!' " 

We cannot now wait for this great consum- 
mation; we must gird ourselves for the work on 
our hands. Only let us keep high aloft the 



38 Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 

whitest banner ever flung to the breeze in any 
^var between nations; let us know for ourselves of 
*a surety, and make all the world own, that the 
^word which we draw is the sword bathed in 
heaven; that we are fighting not for territory or 
empire or national honor, but for the redress of 
wrongs not our own, for the -establishment of 
peace and justice on the earth. 

Is there not great peril in such an undertaking? 
Vast ])eril. To hold the nation to this high pur- 
pose is not an easy task. Yet we cannot fall be- 
low it. The Turk mav fisrht for greed or for 
vengeance and not be greatly damaged by it; the 
American cannot, without losing his soul. Any 
foreigii war which has not for its central purpose 
tlie welfare of humanity would curse this nation 
with a great curse. 

The real reason of this war is this highest rea- 
son. Man}^, no doubt, have urged this reason in- 
sincerely, but the heart of the nation would never 
have consented to war for any lower purpose. 
The war will be prosecuted in this spirit and for 
this end. 

Two things I hope for as the outcome of it : 

First, I trust that it will be made evident to 
everybody over the sea that America stands for 
something else besides the almighty dollar; that 
the people of this country can take great risks and 
make great sacrifices in a cause which promises 
them no selfish gain or aggrandizement. That 
demonstration will be worth a great deal to 
America ; it will strengthen the hopes of all who 
love liberty in the nations of the old world. 



Our Nation and Her Neighbors. 39 

Secondj, I trust and believe that this lire of a 
consecrated purpose burning at the heart of the 
nation will help to consume the iniquities of our 
own national politics. This sublime idea that 
the nation lives not for itself alone, lifted up and 
glorified, ought to throw a revealing light into all 
our caucuses and council chambers. What 
place has the self-seeker in the service of such a 
nation? So long as international law teaches 
that the nation is a colossal egotist, seeking only 
its own advantage, the citizen seems justified in 
making the law of the nation the law of his own 
life. When we begin to understand that na- 
tions must live unselfishly, the citizen may be 
able to see that he cannot follow the career of a 
spoilsman. 

iSTations, like men, are saved not by law but 
by love, l"'© some of us it has long been evident 
that salvation could come to this people only 
through the enkindling of some high and pure 
passion in the national heart. Perhaps this ex- 
perience may awaken in us that enthusiasm of 
humanity by which the life is purified. In sav- 
ii -g others we may save ourselves. 



